Besides her writing, she has also been involved in television. In 2001 she hosted her own talk show Iyanla. Three years later, she joined the television series Starting Over as a life coach. Iyanla is known for being spiritual in her coaching and is often known for her calm and comforting approach to helping women deal with their issues. She is especially known for having her clients have what she would call “fierce conversations” with those they loved.

Vanzant presently manages the Inner Visions Institute for Spiritual Development she founded in Silver Spring, Maryland.

phenomeNEWS: We are pleased to be talking with a woman who has come through so many adversities in life shining brighter than ever, Iyanla Vanzant.

Iyanla Vanzant: Thank you.

You have done so many things, gone in so many directions, had so many challenges. Can you share some of your insights on life, based on the hardships you’ve experienced?

I don’t focus on hardships. I don’t even see them as hardships. I see everything we experience in life as a lesson. So, have I had many lessons? Absolutely. I don’t think I’ve had any more than anyone else. I think the distinction is that I eventually realized that they were lessons and started paying attention. That’s what happens to many of us. We don’t pay attention to our experiences. We get caught up in labeling them good or bad or negative or positive, as opposed to just looking at the blessings and the lessons that they bring us.

When I look back over my life today, I see what was essential and required in order for me to grow, to learn, to heal and better be able to serve both my God and God’s people.

In the beginning did you understand these were life lessons?

I don’t think so. I don’t think the children in the orphanage wake up every morning and say, “I’m an orphan.” I think they wake up and they look at the experience that they’re having and try to find the best way to look at it. So at the time, I didn’t know that I was living in dysfunction. I know now, because I know a better way. One of the things Neale Donald Walsch wrote in his first book, Conversations With God, was you don’t know who you are until you know who you’re not. I know I am not those things that I experienced. When I look back at them now, I see those were just the conditions of my living. I wanted it to be better. I didn’t know it could be different. Once I found out it could be better, I did what I think we all have to do, which is take responsibility for making who you are and your life more enriching.

What was the key to looking at things differently so you get through them in a better way?

I think that we have to ask the right questions. In the midst of a difficult or challenging experience, the first thing we want to say is, “Why me?” or “What did I do to make this happen?” Those are inappropriate questions if you really want to get to the heart of the matter. A much better question would be, “OK, how can I move through this in a way that honors me and everyone else involved?” Now that’s a very advanced question. Other questions might be, “What am I learning here? What do I need to practice to be at peace? What is it that I need to see about myself – about my life – that I haven’t been willing to look at?” I know these things now, but those are the questions that we should ask. The minute you say, “Why is this happening to me? Why did they do this?” you’re in the midst of a judgment and you’re really going to get in a lot of trouble.

We know you lost your daughter and our hearts are with you. Can you share the best ways to get through grief?

First, thank you to the Detroit community who really did stand with me and for their outpouring of love and support, both in the transforming community of my family and in the broader community of Detroit. It was really soothing and comforting. I think that we fear grief. We fear death because it’s so overwhelming and it points to our helplessness. As a mother, the experience of losing my daughter, who was also my best friend, was unspeakable. There just aren’t words that can describe or define what that’s like. I came to the awareness that there was absolutely nothing I could do but just sit in it.

That’s what we fear most about grief. We think that if we sit in it, the grief will overwhelm us. It will take us over; it will kill us. What I learned is, if you just drop your hands and sit in it – for however long it takes – it will pass. As a mom and I guess for anyone who has lost a loved one, it’s hard to know when you’re supposed to feel good again, when to get up and go shopping, when to go out and have fun or laugh or smile. It’s hard to know that. There is the guilt of “OK, I’m not supposed to feel good. It’s only been three months since I buried my child.” This is another mind-boggling experience. What I learned was that my daughter would want me to feel good. Suffering, grieving and mourning doesn’t honor her memory.

There’s a Buddhist tradition that says that when you have lost a loved one, you take that feeling of grief and sadness and pour it into a work or some good deed – in the memory of, on behalf of – remembering the person who you lost. That’s what I was able to do. I was able to take the grief, the sadness, the helplessness, the confusion and pour it into the work that I did with the women on Starting Over, in Gemmia’s memory. The healing started from there.

Can you tell us more about Starting Over?

Well the show is now in reruns. It’s currently not being produced anymore. Starting Over was the first daytime reality show, which means they took real people and put them in a real situation and taped in real time. They taped what was going on as it was happening. I was really honored that the first daytime reality program had to do with the healing of women. We were able to speak to and about women’s issues and support women in a public healing process. That was truly an honor.

For me, there were moments in time when the commercial value of the program conflicted with the healing. Things that needed to be done for the healing process didn’t always align with what was required for TV production. But I have to say that Millee Taggart Radcliff and the team of women producers did their best to honor the women’s needs, to honor what was being presented in the world and as a result, we had a really authentic presentation. The audience didn’t see everything because we taped for 22 hours and the show was 48 minutes. But I still hear from people how Starting Over helped them move through challenges and difficulties. It gave them a different perspective on life and that was a good thing.

Absolutely, feedback is important. You are focused on following your passions and you talk about creating a passion for life in your workshops and CDs. How do you do that?

Well, I think the first thing you have to do to create a passion for living is to rise above the need to survive. So many of us are focused on the need to survive: get a job, pay the rent, pay the bills. Those little things. We are so much greater than that and that’s why so many people suffer in their work, in their home, in their relationships, because they’re making a life that’s way too small for the magnitude of who they are. It’s about understanding that you will survive. You will get the rent paid. You will get the bills paid. Your children will have food and clothing. Pursue that thing that makes your eyes light up. Even if you have to work a job, pursue your passion on the side. Don’t always think that everything you do is going to make you rich and wealthy. I did not write my first book to become a best-selling author. I wrote my first book to support women on welfare who were trying to get back into the work force. That was my sole intention – to let me share some information with women that will support them in getting off welfare. I never knew that it was going to become a bestseller. I never knew that it would become a primer for women seeking emotional and spiritual development. I just did what I could do in the moment. That’s the key to passion. Give all that you can – all that you know, all that you have. Give totally in the moment and be focused on supporting one person not 10,000. And that one person you support may be you. But if you can find joy in giving all that you know, all that you have, all that you’ve experienced, to the one thing that you do in the morning, that’s how passion begins.

Just like experiencing passion at the physical level, you don’t reach the height of passion in 30 seconds. There has to be kissing and touching. The same thing is true with what you’re doing in life. You have to know it and touch it and kiss it. The passion will ultimately grow. We live too much in a microwave society. We want to pop a potato in and get it out in three minutes. In a conventional oven, it takes a potato an hour to cook. We have to get back to a willingness to not rush everything.

That’s right, we need to take the time to nurture our passions in life.

Yes, take the time to nurture it, to learn it, to massage it, to be with it, whatever it is that brings you joy, whatever brings you peace, whatever brings you closer to your passion.

I’m a scrap booker. I scrapbook for my own joy. I don’t show my pages. I don’t sell my pages. I give them away. The passion for me is in putting them together. I don’t do it for any reason other than the reason that I love it. It makes me feel good. So I make time for it. I do it for the joy and the love. And as I’ve done it over the years, I’ve gotten better and better at it. The same thing is true about passion in living.

It’s so much easier when you have passion for something. Would you say that passion comes out of love or does love come out of passion?

I believe that love and passion are on the same continuum. A person goes from like, to strong like, to love and then to passion. The thing about love and passion is that it’s nonjudgmental and also unconditional. Love and passion will support you beyond what the intellect can rationalize.

When you really love someone or when you are really passionate about something, your intellect cannot always figure out what the next move is. Ultimately, the passion – the love – will spur you into the next move. It will impel you or compel you to the next level.

So would you say that it is all about your heart?

Yes. Passion is a function of the heart, not the mind.

Iyanla, how do we forgive when someone has hurt our heart and we don’t know how to be forgiving?

The thing that I’ve learned is that I don’t have anyone to forgive but myself. I am no longer a supporter of forgive your father, forgive your mother, forgive your abuser. I know that’s where people have to start, because it’s hard for us to see why we called the experience forward. We don’t always see what we learned from the experience or the benefits that experience may have at some future point in our life. I know people have to start there, but I’m not there any more. I know that the only person I ever have to forgive is myself because there’s no one else in the room but me and God at any time. And God wants joy and love and peace. If there’s anything else present in the room, it’s me. And I have to forgive myself for my judgments. I have to forgive myself for my fears, my failings, my guilt, my anger, my inauthenticity, my dishonesty. I have to forgive myself for the dysfunctional belief and agreements that I’ve made within myself that other people show up to participate in. I don’t have anyone to forgive but myself.

Is it truly that simple, when we forgive ourselves for feelings that we have about someone else, that it falls away?

Yes, it falls. It falls into a much higher expression because anger, guilt, resentment, disappointment and betrayal are the low vibrations. If we want to have a higher emotional set point – joy and peace and compassion – we have to be merciful because there are times when we need mercy. We have to be compassionate because there are times when we need compassion. We have to be forgiving, because there are times when we need forgiveness. We think that we are the only ones who got hurt, but right now someone is laying on a therapist’s couch because of my bad behavior. I can’t walk around like I have wings and a halo because I don’t. And I’m sure that I’ve disappointed people, betrayed people, hurt people and they may have never been able to be authentic or honest enough to tell me. So I can’t withhold my mercy, my compassion, my forgiveness. God doesn’t withhold compassion, mercy, favor, grace or forgiveness from us.

So forgiveness would be one of the most important things you can give to yourself?

The first thing would be to not judge yourself. If we could eliminate judgment, forgiveness wouldn’t be necessary. If we could eliminate right, wrong, good, bad, fair, unfair, should, shouldn’t, then there would be no need for forgiveness. The only time we need forgiveness is when we are judging something or someone else, including ourselves.

What things can people do to honor themselves more?

Strive to be in touch with your deepest feelings. Be in touch with your vulnerability and try not to intellectualize constructs and personalities. We need to start being more emotionally honest about what we feel, what we see, what we know, what we need. It’s important for us to stop trying to manipulate people into loving us. We need to ask for the love and the support that we want. These are ways that we can honor ourselves.

Whatever is going on in our world is there because it needs to be there. There is something that we need to learn, something that we need to practice, something that we need to offer. We can stop responding to behavior and look beyond – into the deepest parts of ourselves and others. We need to find that compassion.

I believe that honor and honesty are first cousins of mother and child. One gives birth to the other. When you’re being honest, you honor yourself and you honor other people. And when you honor yourself, you’ll be honest and you’ll share that honesty with others. So I don’t think honor means just doing whatever feels right to you in the moment without regard for anyone else. We have to be careful about our spiritual arrogance; we think that when we get a principle or teaching and because we have it, we want to impose what we’ve learned on other people.

Iyanla, you are doing a lot of different things, including a ministerial coaching school. Could you tell us more about that?

In 1999, I started a program to train spiritual life coaches. Coaching is the second fastest growing career track in this country today. It was really based on supporting people in their goals, objectives, successes and achievements. As a minister or teacher, I support the evolution of consciousness. What I desired to experience in the coaching paradigm was more connection to spiritual law and principle. So I wrote and created a curriculum to train spiritual life coaches and we do that at the Inner Visions Institute for Spiritual Development in Silver Spring, Maryland. It’s a three-year process, actually. It begins with two years of personal development where you learn your coaching skills and tools and principles experientially, by applying them to your life in conjunction with other class members.

You start coaching on the first day, but you coach from a spiritual perspective – using principles, using tools, using process – that is grounded in spiritual law. Then the third year you do those things that are required for credentialization as a coach. Classes meet once a month. We’ve been blessed to have people come from as far away as London, Canada, the Bahamas, Jamaica. Then they do the work away from class. It’s a process that not only trains you to become a coach, but also gives you a solid foundation for addressing all the issues in your own life. That is why the first two years are for personal development.

It sounds like a place we’d like to go! We understand that you’re going to be coming to Detroit to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Transforming Love Community, where Rev. Shaheerah Stephens is the spiritual leader. What will you be speaking about?

I know the topic is “Total Transformation.” What I’ll be talking about will depend on who is in the audience. That is where I will receive my guidance and insight.

Iyanla, you’ve given us so many insights today. If you had one more pearl of wisdom to leave with us, what would that be?

You have within you the ability to create all that you desire to be, to have and to experience. Love yourself first, take care of yourself first. Always remember to vote for yourself.

For more information please visit InnerVisionsWorldWide.com.